


Cracked

by SwingFromTwistedTrees



Category: Secret History - Donna Tartt
Genre: Asexual Camilla Macaulay, Oblivious Richard Papen, seriously for a narrator he notices absolutely nothing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 21:47:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24433810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwingFromTwistedTrees/pseuds/SwingFromTwistedTrees
Summary: Camilla is marrying Francis. Richard, as usual, doesn't understand her.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	Cracked

Richard wondered, not for the first time, how she managed to look so much like a statue. She was a living, breathing person encased in marble. He had thought of her often since leaving Hampden, even in the days when things with Sophie had been good. She looked exactly as she had in his mind, except for the diamond ring on her finger.

He knew she didn’t love him; he knew he should have known sooner that she didn’t love him. Even when he realized she had been seeing Henry, he grasped at the hope that one day she might love him as much as he loved her. But never in a million years did Richard think that he would be sitting in front of her, a ring that was so flashy and so distinctly not Camilla on her finger, so that she could tell him that she would be marrying Francis in a few months. Perhaps it would have stung less if she had at least been engaged to a man that would want to touch her. Then Richard could at least pretend to believe that she had really found someone who would love her better than he could. But Francis?

After she broke the news they stared at one another for a long time. Too long. This was another thing about Camilla. She had always been surprisingly content with silence. She sipped her own coffee, unconcerned about how long it was taking for Richard to process the fact that she had really chosen to marry a gay man over him.

“Why?” It came out angrier than he meant it to. She had always had that effect on him. Few people in his lifetime had ever made him feel true jealousy but he was seemingly unable to keep the bite out of his voice any time the subject of Camilla with another man was broached.

“It’s fitting.” Casual, vague, confusing, everything that she was wrapped into two words.

“He’s gay!” As though she didn’t know.

“Which is why this is the perfect arrangement. For both of us.” How did she manage to be so still? She should be uncomfortable, fidgeting, at least a little apologetic.

“That’s ridiculous.”

Her gaze grew cold, perhaps colder than he had ever seen it.

“You were much kinder to me when you thought I might sleep with you.”

That stung, he had to admit, although he wasn’t so sure she was wrong.

“I loved you.” He said. There was nothing else he could say.

“You didn’t know me. You still don’t.”

He didn’t know whether to be unnerved or impressed by her stillness now. Something had changed her. Perhaps it was Henry.

“Camilla, if this is about Henry-“

“What?” Genuine surprise, perhaps that was it took to crack the marble, though it quickly froze back over.

“I understand if you can’t imagine love after Henry, but marrying someone who won’t ever touch you is not-“

Her interrupting laughter was harsh, unnatural, it didn’t suit her in the least and yet it may have been the truest sound he’d heard from her.  
“I’m marrying Francis because he won’t fuck me. Henry never did either, not that you or my brother ever bothered to ask.”

“You were sleeping with him.”

“Said who?”

“Charles!”

“I wasn’t sleeping with Henry.” There was a fire behind her eyes, which was arguably more frightening than the ice that normally held strong.

“I don’t understand.” It sounded pathetic, he knew, but then Richard had always been a little pathetic for her.

“I loved Henry. I love him still. He loved me, and I know he loved me because he never expected me to prove it with sex. I didn’t have to tell him that I didn’t want it, he just knew.”

“Didn’t want what?”

She sighed, years of frustration drifting across the table with her warm breath.

“Sex, Richard. I don’t like it, and I don’t want it.”

“That’s ridiculous.” The words are out before he can stop them.

“So I’ve been told. Over and over again.” The marble is cracking, and Richard is no longer sure he wants to see what’s underneath. He begins to say something, to smooth things over, but he doesn’t have a chance.

“Richard, Francis is in a very difficult situation right now. His parents were going to marry him off to some society girl that would only make him miserable, and he would never be able to leave her because his family couldn’t take the scandal. You know as well as I do that Francis couldn’t survive that kind of marriage. I myself am in a similar situation. Charles left, abandoned me to take care of our grandmother on my own and I have, but she’s not getting better and it won’t be long until I lose her. She wants me safe and secure, she wants me secure and safe with a man but men are not safe or secure. They want something that I would rather not give them, and in marriage I wouldn’t be able to get away from it. They would leave me or rape me and I will not put myself through that. I’m marrying Francis to save myself as much as I’m doing to save him. He can live his life, be with who he wants to be with and I’ll never have to endure going to bed with a man. Mind you, Francis doesn’t fully understand it himself, but he knows that I’m right and that this is the only way out for both of us.  
Henry understood. He saw me. I think he may have even been the same. We never discussed it because we never had to. He was tender, and kind, and he protected me when I had nowhere else to go. I had something with him that I thought I would never have with anyone, because everyone would always want something. People take, Richard. Charles took more from me than I can even list for you. My own brother wanted proof of my love with sex and when I wouldn’t give it he took it. You would have taken it too, and I know because you shut me out the moment you thought I was sleeping with Henry. I was suddenly no good to you anymore because my body was unavailable. Even now, I’ve made a decision that will save me from a life of nothing but misery, and you’re looking at me as though I owe you an apology.” Her coffee cup was shaking. Fury seeped through the growing cracks in her marble façade like molten lava, and Richard was suddenly struck by how little she looked like her brother these days.

“You have to understand that I took it rather personally how little interest you took in me.” It was the wrong thing to say, but they were being honest here, right?

“Good. You should take it personally.” She was putting her coat on. “My lack of interest in having sex with you really had nothing to do with my lack of emotional interest in you. You thought you were kind to me, but really you were looking for an exchange for that kindness. It was easy to see, so please don’t think that my asexuality is the reason that nothing ever happened between us.”

And just like that, she was marble again. A pristine statue in his dreams that he could never quite comprehend, and he suspected she would stay that way.

“Goodbye, Richard. I hope you don’t mind, but I’m not sure you’ll be receiving a wedding invitation.”

She hailed a taxi, and Richard watched as it vanished into lines of traffic. There was an odd sensation in his chest, perhaps akin to a heartbreak that he no longer felt he had a right to feel.


End file.
